By Susan Callahan, Associate Editor and Featured Columnist[Health and fitness articles are reviewed by our Editorial Board, which includes certified fitness and health professionals.]

Want to live longer? Try walking faster. That's according to several new studies that have found an interesting connection between how fast you walk normally and how long you will live.

There's already plenty of anecdotal evidence that slow walking is related to poor and declining health. When my father-in-law was 72 years old, my husband noticed a funny thing. This once vigorous man, a veteran of World War II, who still took great delight in dancing and dressing up for parties, had changed. He had slowed down. Literally, he had started to walk slower than normal. Within a year, my father-in-law was dead.

Throughout history, and across all animal species, from humans to chimpanzees to lizards, slowing down has signaled an approaching end to life. It’s called “gait speed” or “bradypedia” by some researchers.

Now, researchers from several universities have sharpened their pencils on this subject. Is it true that people who walk slower die sooner than those who walk faster? How slow is too slow? Are there things we can do to increase our gait speed to improve our chances of living longer, healthy lives?

What is the Evidence That Gait Speed Predicts How Long You Will Live?

Several studies have found that gait speed affects longevity. A 2006 study from the University of Pittsburgh studied 439 people over age 65. For 8 years, the researchers measuring them for various signs of physical fitness and overall health, and ability to function.

At the end of the 8-year study, what they found was startling. Gait speed predicted mortality better than any other measure. The study found that those who did not improve their gait speed at all --or who slowed down ---suffered 56% more deaths than those who improved how fast they walked.

Another experiment was conducted by Dr. Eleanor Simonsick, a Baltimore epidemiologist. She and a team of researchers examined the walking speeds of 3,075 seniors. The participants were asked to walk a 400 meter course as fast as they could. Six years later, they looked at the mortality of the group. A total of 430 people had died. When they matched the walking speed against the death records, the researchers discovered that walking speed predicted the risk of death. For every 1 minute longer it took to complete the 400 meter course, average risk of death increased by 29%. Average risk fo becoming disabled increased by 52%.

This would explain why those who live in cities designed to make us walk --- like New York --- tend to have longer life expectancies. The average lifespan of New York city residents is 78.6 years, a full 9 months longer than Americans in general.

[There are some exceptions. In Los Angeles, life expectancy is 80.3 years, according to a 2010 report from the County of Los Angeles, Office of Health and Epidemiology. This longevity, which surpasses New York, is attributed b most epidemiologists to the area's focus on fitness and healthy living.]

Clearly, slowing down is a predictor of early death.Other studies have confirmed how powerful your gait speed is at predicting overall health and mortality.

Why Is Walking Speed Such a Great Indicator of Health?

Walking requires a coordination of many body systems. Walking requires that your body hold itself upright, so it requires balance. It requires muscle strength to propel you along. It requires a sufficiently strong cardiovascular system so that enough blood is provided to your limbs and core. It requires that all these systems remain coordinated to prevent you from falling.

Because walking makes demands across almost all systems of your body, when you are sick or in decline, your ability to walk is one of the first things affected. Researchers like to think of walking as a measure of the total "disease burden" you are carrying. Many times, even before you are diagnosed accurately with a disease or condition, researchers notice that the evidence of the disease shows up in your walking speed. You walk slower. You slow down.

Conversely, when you are perfectly healthy, you have a zero "disease burden" and you tend to walk at a faster clip.

How Slow Is Too Slow for a Healthy Gait Speed?

Are you walking too slowly? Are you slowing down? Studies have found clear fall-offs in health at various gait speeds. Basically, if you are walking at a pace of around 3 miles an hour, you're doing great. If you're walking at a pace of less than about half a mile an hour, you probably have serious, perhaps undiagnosed health issues.

You might think that doing wind sprints or running marathons would help your gait speed. The answer, it may surprise you, is that neither of these works very effectively. What does work? Resistance training. A new study published January 25, 2009 by the Vancouver Coastal Health and Research Institute and the University of British Columbia found that older women who lifted weights for 1 to 2 hours each week for a year improved their gait speed significantly.

You have to hit the weights. Either lift your body weight or weights in the gym. Do not trying lifting too much. Simply engage your muscles in resistance training for 2 hours a week.

There are plenty of resistance-training exercises you can do at home such as push-up, squats and crunches that as just as effective as going to the gym if you stay dedicated. Daniela Melton, our Senior Certified fitness professional, also recommends that you do core exercises regularly. "Core", Daniela explains, includes everything from below the neck to your hip area, front and back. "When a person has a strong core, they tend to move better in all directions and have less pain. A person can train their core strength by including planks, for example in their routine", Daniela says.

The trick is to set a time every other day to devote yourself to improving your muscle strength. Muscle strength, we have found, is necessary to maintain your overall health.

As Daniela explains, "older people often tend to develop kind of a 'senior shuffle' which often stems from a fear of falling. The body feels the closer the foot stays to the ground, the less they are apt to fall down. Balance and agility training are an important a way to improve walking speed, no matter what the persons age.

Incorporate core training and a program of resistance training in your week. Over time, and I’ve noticed this in my own life, you will start to walk at a faster clip. You could end up extending your life.

[Health and fitness articles are reviewed by our Editorial Board, which includes Registered Nurses and other Certified Fitness and health professionals.]Related:

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